The Message of Mark

By Donald English

The fast-paced vitality of Mark's narrative wins the hearts of today's readers on its own terms. Yet while at first glance Mark appears to be a simple account of Jesus' ministry, a serious study raises all kinds of questions: Why doesn't Jesus make his true identity more obvious to the crowds? Why do his disciples find it so difficult to understand? Why is Jesus' work met with such growing resistance? Like any great story, Mark's Gospel unveils its meaning to those who listen attentively, inquire patiently, and reflect on its significance.

In The Message of Mark, Donald English offers a wise, welcoming, and nontechnical guide to this smallest of the four Gospels. Beginning with an exploration of Mark's purpose in writing, he examines the focal points of Jesus' teaching, the stories, the characters, and the original audience of the Gospel. Along with exposition of each section of the text, he draws out principles and applications about the nature of true faith, the cost of discipleship, and how we should receive God's Word today. Above all, English writes as one who has a passion to help others appreciate Mark's portrait of Jesus—the Son of Man and Son of God.

As with all volumes in the Bible Speaks Today series, this book is characterized by three goals: to expound the biblical text with accuracy, to relate biblical teaching to contemporary life, and to be readable. This new edition includes updated language and current NIV Scripture quotations throughout, as well as a seven-session study guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Release date: May 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780830812493

Donald English

Donald English was general secretary of the Division of Home Mission for the Methodist Church in England and chairman of the World Methodist Executive Committee. A well-known speaker, he was twice president of the Methodist Conference in England.

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Introduction

Our first question must be: ‘Why should we read Mark’s Gospel at all?’ There is the obvious answer that it is there, and that we don’t want to miss anything. There is further the now widely accepted fact that Mark’s was the first of the New Testament Gospels to be written, and was used by Matthew and Luke. But the other New Testament Gospels are longer, and each has a more apparent distinctiveness – Matthew with the strongly Jewish background, Luke with his commitment to outcast groups, and John with the great ‘I am’ themes. What has Mark to offer by comparison with these?

It used to be thought that Mark was, by contrast, a simple, straightforward account of the story of Jesus, set out chronologically. That approach shouldn’t be wholly abandoned, since in broad terms it remains true. It also safeguards some important insights into Mark’s intention, not least the way in which he shows the shadow of the cross hanging over the ministry of Jesus from the very beginning.

Yet it is equally clear that Mark shows little interest in close or detailed historical linkage between one story and the next. Nor does he include material vital to a pure historian concerning Jesus’ ancestry, birth or childhood. It is not a biography of Jesus. What happened after the resurrection is largely omitted too, if, as will be suggested later, the original version of Mark’s Gospel ended at Mark 16:8. He is equally free of pressure to provide exact geographical locations. Stories move from scene to scene without explanation. It is clear that something else concerns him much more. This ‘something else’ is the most important element in the introduction to the reading of the Gospel itself. It uncovers the purpose of the writer and the prospect for the reader.

The best way to discover the intention of Mark is to read his own expression of purpose, wherever he has tried to make it plain. We can go on to examine focal points of the teaching contained in the Gospel. What Mark emphasizes should help us to grasp his purpose more clearly. Then there is the task of reading the stories Mark tells, trying sympathetically to get into them, and to discern the reason for their presence in the Gospel from within the account itself. Questions of the materials on which Mark drew are not unimportant, but they must not distract our attention from the texture of the Gospel itself. We need to try also to understand the people who figure in the stories. They are important for a discovery of what the Gospel is about. Other people are important, too. There are those for whom the Gospel was first written. What we can know or surmise about their attitudes, experiences and needs will help us better to see how Mark’s Gospel related to them. And we must not forget ourselves as we, under the inspiration of the same Spirit who led the writer, seek to be addressed by him through the Scripture as we take it up now.

The task is not a simple one. It has some of the characteristics of solving a mystery! But it is deeply challenging and spiritually rewarding for all who are willing to commit themselves to it. The element of commitment will be constantly present.

1. Mark’s purpose

There is no ambiguity here! The opening thirteen verses set it out with breathtaking clarity.

¹

There is, first, the idea of ‘The beginning of the good news’, or ‘gospel’ (1:1). Something new is being launched. Much has been made of Mark’s use, for the first time, of gospel as a way of tabulating the good news (which is what ‘gospel’ means) in a written form. There is something more significant even than that, however. The word ‘gospel’ had a meaning prior to that of either ‘message’ or ‘written document’. It was originally used to describe ‘an epoch-making event’. For example, the birth of the future emperor Augustus was described as ‘gospel’, meaning a happening which would change world history. Mark certainly offers gospel as good news. Equally clearly he is presenting it for the first time as a whole account in written form. Perhaps most important of all, however, he is announcing an event after which the history of the world will never again be the same.

At the centre of this event is Jesus Christ. Mark makes it clear that the person at the heart of his story establishes continuity with God’s previous activity in the world, hence the quotations from the Old Testament (1:2–3). There is also a testimony from John the Baptist, seen as the prophet promised in the Old Testament who would precede the coming of the Messiah – God’s anointed who delivers Israel (1:4–8). After John, if he is properly regarded in Old Testament terms, the next will be the Messiah.

This is precisely what the voice from heaven, during John’s baptism of Jesus, makes clear. The ‘You are my Son’ of 1:11 provides the closing bracket of the parenthesis which began with ‘the Son of God’ in 1:1. Mark could hardly be clearer about his view of who Jesus is.

We seem to be on the same track when Mark describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He announces nothing less than ‘the kingdom of God’. Because it has drawn, or is drawing, near, people must repent and believe the gospel (1:14–15).

This picture of the Messiah sent from God is made even more compelling by the demonstration, beyond words of preaching, in the miracles Jesus performed. For the first eight chapters of this Gospel there is a quite breathless presentation of one work of power after another. Mark needs to keep using the word ‘immediately’ because he is hurrying his readers along from one example of the release of divine energy to the next.

If this Gospel was written as some kind of training material for new Christians, or for early Christian evangelists, as some have suggested, then the evidence so far is clear and convincing. The powerful Son of God overcomes all problems brought to him. The kingdom of God is focused on him. Those who come to him in need are taught, healed and delivered. ‘We have never seen anything like this!’ (2:12) becomes the appropriate response.

It is much too simple a conclusion, however, to assume that Mark’s sole intention is to portray Jesus as the powerful Son of God. It is probably not even his main purpose. The high Christology of the first thirteen verses, and the excitement of the miracles in the first eight chapters, are increasingly seen in Mark’s Gospel as the necessary preliminary to something else.

The first hint about that ‘something else’ comes at the outset of Jesus’ preaching ministry as Mark records it. People are called not just to hear that the kingdom of God is imminent, but to do something about it. They should ‘repent and believe the good news’. We are justified in picking up that theme also as the Gospel unfolds. Mark is pointing us to a double thrust in his message. It is about who Jesus is. It is also about how people should respond to Jesus. These two themes run right through the Gospel of Mark. They form the basic materials for the telling of the story of Jesus.

Neither of those themes stays the same as the Gospel unfolds. What is more, the development of each points us towards a more accurate definition of Mark’s purpose.

2. Who Jesus is

There has been a long tradition of noting the significant change in the tone and direction of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel after the accounts of Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi ‘You are the Messiah’ (8:27–30) and of the transfiguration of Jesus (9:2–13), where the emphasis is again on the identity of Jesus. ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!’ Before this time the concentration is on addressing the crowds, with attention to who Jesus might be. After it there is more concentration on training the disciples, and the focal point about Jesus is not who he is but what he has come to accomplish. This is particularly encapsulated in three repetitive passages (8:31; 9:31; 10:32–34). There is great value in that perception of the way Jesus lovingly helped his disciples towards the truth about himself and his vocation.

What has also to be recognized, however, and what is perhaps even more germane to Mark’s purpose in gathering the material together in this way, is that these two stories (at Caesarea Philippi and on the transfiguration mountain) also make a significant change in the presentation of the two key themes so far: namely, who Jesus is, and how we should respond to him.

What is noticeable about the identity of Jesus is the striking alteration of strategy in his ministry, without any loss in its authority. From Mark 8 onwards Jesus goes steadily on to the confrontation with the religious authorities, speaking as he goes about the inevitability of suffering, rejection and death for himself. The all-powerful healer and miracle worker suddenly becomes the one who submits to the fate of crucifixion (8:31, etc.), despite protests from Peter about such a course (8:32). He knows the pain that will be involved (14:32–42). He does not even defend himself against false evidence at his trial (14:61).

Yet at no point does Mark give any impression of Jesus being anything other than in total control of the situation. The contrast is not between a time of self-assured success, followed by a period of uncontrollable decline. Jesus walks from one phase to the other with determination and confidence. He predicts what will happen. We are given to feel that even at his trial he knows better than anyone else what is happening. The demonstration of power in the first half of the Gospel, and the lowly path to the cross in the second, are part of the one process of doing the will of his Father, part of the one way of being who he is and of doing what he came to do. They belong inextricably together. That will be a vital clue as we try to discern Mark’s message about Jesus and the kingdom of God.

The same point is made in a different way if we consider the titles used of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. The two most significant are ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’.

The background of Son of God is in Old Testament passages like 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalms 2:7 and 89:26–27. It is used sometimes of Israel’s kings and sometimes of the messianic king who will come to deliver God’s people. When the title is used in Mark the reader has to decide in the context which use is the more likely. The accounts of the baptism of Jesus, the transfiguration, and the trial before the Sanhedrin require a messianic interpretation. The comment on the text will argue that the same is true when the demon-possessed cry out and call Jesus ‘Son of God’. There may be something more subtle about the use of this title towards the end of the Gospel. At the crucifixion of Jesus, the centurion in charge of the soldiers remarks, ‘Surely this man was [the/a] Son of God!’ Whichever translation we prefer, it may still be that the centurion had a much more earthy view of Jesus when he used such language. But Mark could be making a point which will come out even more clearly below; namely, that those who have eyes to see will perceive that the soldier’s words were more meaningful than he knew. If so, then we are very near to the heart of Mark’s Gospel. But that is to jump ahead.

Alongside the use of Son of God is the more frequent use of Son of Man. The background in the Old Testament is again varied. In Psalm 8:4 it refers to humankind. In Daniel 7:13 it refers to a heavenly figure honoured by God. In Ezekiel it is the prophet’s way of being addressed by God.

Mark makes clear that this is Jesus’ favoured way of describing himself. It occurs in the Gospel at a number of points which bring together the two titles or variations of them. In 8:29 Peter affirms Jesus as ‘the Messiah’ (meaning ‘the anointed one’, the Christ). He is praised for the insight. It is a true perception. At once, however, when Jesus speaks of his future, he uses, not Messiah, but Son of Man, and he speaks of the necessary suffering which lies ahead. The title ‘Son of Man’, with its much more lowly connotations than Christ, Messiah, Son of God, is being used to interpret the others. When, at his trial, Jesus admits to being ‘the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One’, he goes on immediately to interpret that confession in terms of the future of ‘the Son of Man’ (14:61–62). When seeking to make abundantly clear to his disciples where the way forward lay in the work of salvation he had come to achieve, Jesus uses Son of Man language to communicate it (10:45). At the centre of the Gospel are the three prophetic statements about his death, each cast in terms of ‘Son of Man’.

To jump ahead once more, it is noteworthy that words about Jesus’ future are accompanied by sayings about the nature of discipleship in the kingdom. Again we are moving nearer to the central purpose of this Gospel, ‘like master, like servant’.

We come across the same emphasis by yet another route when considering the use of kingdom of God in Mark. Jesus begins by announcing that the kingdom is drawing, or has already drawn, near. The strong implication is that it has drawn near in him. As the story unfolds it becomes even clearer that he is the focal point of that kingdom. His power over disease, nature and demons celebrates the kingdom. He even assures people of divine forgiveness, to the chagrin of the religious leaders (2:1–12). People who show interest in coming to terms with the kingdom of God receive instruction in how to follow Jesus. Perhaps one can put it most accurately by saying that if he is not the king of the kingdom, since God is, he is at least the model of kingship. People can see in him God’s way of being king.

If the disciples in any way perceived that, and Peter’s affirmation at Caesarea Philippi suggests that they might have done so, then we can understand their horror, expressed in Peter’s words straight after his testimony to Jesus, at the thought of Jesus going to death in Jerusalem at the hands of others. His picture of the future did not coincide with theirs, even though he affirmed their view of him as the Christ, the Son of God. It was not that the titles were wrong. He was warning them against the accretions of centuries, whereby the Messiah was seen in terms of the model of kingship developed by earthly kings.

Jesus allowed the use of the traditional titles, but recast their meaning through his own way of being king – certainly being in control and seeing to the heart of things, but also showing lowly submission to his Father, and eventually suffering so that the kingdom might be truly established in the lives of men and women.

We are right, therefore, to see the person and work of Jesus as a focal point of Mark’s account. But we should also notice that as the Gospel progresses, the picture of Jesus changes from the all-powerful conquering centre of divine energy, to the lowly, unresistant, suffering one. What his followers, and the crowds, and his opponents found difficult to see, to which Mark wishes to draw his readers’ attention, is that this also was a release of divine energy, far more significant than the power strategy which had preceded it, necessary though it was. We may have to confess that we, too, have difficulty with that, a point of great importance if discipleship means following our Master.

We have now looked at one of the main strands of Mark’s account; namely, who Jesus is. We have seen that this theme changes across the length of the Gospel in two ways. ‘Who Jesus is’ moves from an emphasis on a miracle worker to lowly dying servant, though without loss of authority. And ‘who Jesus is’ becomes, in the second half, the basis for concentrating on ‘what Jesus came to do’.

3. The response to Jesus

Each of these variations of the theme is vital for the other main emphasis to which we now turn. We have already identified it as how people should respond to Jesus.

Mark indicates Jesus’ stress on this element by recording his earliest exhortation. Because the kingdom of God is at hand, his hearers should ‘Repent and believe the good news’ (1:15). Followed as it is by the series of miracles which Jesus performed, one would expect a welcome response to such an appeal, coming as it does from the person at the centre of the transformations taking place in people’s lives. Here too, however, as with the portrayal of the person of Jesus, so with the response people make, there is a development of theme into something different from the initial portrayal.

To the question ‘How do people in Mark’s Gospel show faith in Jesus?’, the answer, to put it bluntly, is that mostly they don’t! His family misunderstand and try to deflect him from his course. His own townspeople are almost jealous of him and certainly refuse to accept his claims. The religious leaders are at first cool and later directly antagonistic to the point of seeking his death. The crowd follows, enjoying the teaching and being amazed by it, but in the end it does nothing to save him. Even his disciples, and not least Peter, struggle to understand without ever properly doing so, and get things badly wrong. Some of the women are at least faithful as far as the crucifixion, but even their faith fails them at the very end.

Only two groups seem to give anywhere near the expected response – the desperate and the demoniacs. The latter at least show signs of knowing who Jesus is; but they get no further because recognition leads to resistance, not faith, till they are delivered. The desperate alone are seen to be faithful. They have nowhere else to go, and no future to hope for without a cure. In the main they cast themselves on Jesus and find all that they need, and more.

One explanation of this phenomenon of unbelief is the sinfulness of the human heart. Mark makes this plain by drawing particular attention to what it means to follow Jesus. It is likely, as some commentators suggest, that the pattern of concentrating half the Gospel on miracles and the other half on the passion is deliberate. The pattern is presented to underline the fact that discipleship is not an unending experience of supernatural power revealed in miracles and powerful teaching. Discipleship is also about lowly, costly obedience to the will of God, in facing the sinfulness and evil of human nature in the world. The disciples particularly illustrate how difficult it is for human beings to accept that side of the life of faith. They seem to enjoy all the wonderful works, but they recoil at the talk of the cost. They argue about who will have the seats of honour, both his and theirs. Peter, whose testimony may well lie behind much of what Mark writes, is a particular example both of the good intentions and of the dismal failures of those who were encountered by Jesus.

So one part of the mystery of unbelief is the power of sin in people’s lives. That is not the only, nor even the most important, reason for lack of true discipleship in this Gospel, however. There is a second development of the discipleship theme in Mark. Put simply, it is that the people in the story are not able to come to proper discipleship because they do not yet know the full story. They are faced by Jesus before his death and resurrection. If true discipleship is, as Jesus keeps on making clear, to carry our cross after him, and to discover God’s care for us as we do, then they are bound to be unable to perceive its total meaning before he dies and rises, though those who are desperate enough seem to make the breakthrough.

Evidence that this is part of the intention of the Gospel is seen in the way that, from the very beginning, the shadow of the cross hangs over the story. Mark is not alone in describing the baptism of Jesus by John, with all its implications for our understanding of the death of Jesus for our sins. It signifies his association with our sins, since he had none of his own. But in Mark there is also the early saying about not fasting while the bridegroom is with you, but only when the bridegroom ‘is taken away’. Then there is the dramatic change in the middle of the Gospel, marked by the repeated prophecy of death, with the resurrection also promised. And half the Gospel is given to the passion, including the resurrection. When one adds the way that Jesus speaks of discipleship as taking up one’s cross and following him, the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the model for discipleship becomes powerfully clear.

It is at this point that we can perceive part of the reason for seeing Mark’s Gospel as owing something to the theology of Paul. The reality and power of sin in the world is a pillar of Paul’s teaching. So is the centrality of the death of Jesus as its solution. Above all, Paul sees the Christian life as a daily experience of dying and rising with Christ, which is symbolized in baptism. Mark benefited from Paul as well as from Peter – another reason why this Gospel is so basic to the faith of Christians.

From the various roads towards an understanding of the purpose of the Gospel of Mark we have now looked at Mark’s own declared intention. We have followed the presentation of the material and the way it develops. Attention has been given especially to major themes of the Gospel: the identity and ministry of Jesus and the nature and demands of discipleship. The two have come together in the focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus as properly the climax of all that he came to do and as the secret of true discipleship. As we have covered this ground we have noticed the people in the story and the nature of their varied participation.

4. Mark’s readership . . . and us

We may now ask about those for whom the Gospel of Mark was written. Here we are unavoidably faced with trying to discern from the text itself who they were and why they were the recipients.

Some outside evidence may be inferred from the content. Of the four suggested destinations (Egypt, Antioch, Galilee and Rome) the last would seem still to be the most likely. The people addressed include a majority of Gentiles, since Mark needs to explain Jewish customs. Yet he is not apparently writing to a church torn by Jewish–Gentile power struggles within its life. The spread of the Gospel of Mark, and its use by other Gospel writers, suggests that a reliable and strong church stood behind it. The obvious relevance to the ‘suffering’ element in discipleship hints at a place and time of recent or current persecution. Rome under Nero certainly provides just such a scenario, and is supported by the likelihood that the Gospel was written after the death of the apostle Peter, and probably of Paul too. Sometime after ad 64 is indicated, and before the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70, which is still in the future in the Gospel, taking the prophetic element of the Gospel seriously.

If Rome is the place, then the readership is a varied group. The need for some exposition of suffering in the Christian life would be important. Was there also a tendency in such circumstances to want a particularly powerful form of Christianity in order to counter, at a supernatural level, the persecution being experienced at the natural level? Or was there a view of Jesus which so emphasized his divine nature and power that awareness of his humanity and understanding of human need was deficient? Were so many Christians wondering why, with a Saviour who was Son of God, they should be suffering at all? The answers cannot reach any degree of certainty, but somewhere in that set of suggestions there is probably a fair account of some of the questions being asked.

In response, Mark assures them of a strong and lowly Jesus, whose very suffering became an avenue of salvation (a point powerfully made by Peter on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2:36–39).

The view of authorship taken here is that the writer was John Mark, to whom reference is found in Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37–39; Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; and Philemon 24. He was evidently close to Peter and, after an initial failure, travelled with Paul. His pedigree is therefore strong!

It is clear that Mark did not try to present a chronological biography of Jesus, as a modern historian might. He had at his disposal material from spoken and written sources, and personal testimony from the apostle Peter. All this he sifted and presented in a way which enabled him to communicate those things he felt called to make plain. Such a view of the origin of this Gospel in no sense diminishes the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring this part of Holy Scripture. It adds to the sense of purpose behind the Gospel, and it acknowledges the vital part of the author. It lifts us healthily clear of views of inspiration which require nothing of the author but the capacity to write words received from heaven. At the other end of the spectrum, it delivers us from views of Mark stringing together isolated segments of tradition with very little purpose other than to include as many as possible. Above all, it concentrates our attention on the text itself, as speaking for itself. There is a mystery about the divine inspiration of human effort, and we do well to acknowledge it and receive Holy Scripture as it is, from the hand of God through the minds of human beings committed to be channels of his will.

How are we to receive and read Mark’s Gospel? Much in the cultural detail of the first century is strange to us. We need to work hard at understanding it and its significance for those described in the Gospel, and for those to whom it first came. We must be conscious, too, of the traditions and thought forms and experiences which shape our perceptions as we read the Bible. These also need to come under the judgment of God the Spirit as we read. But at depth, as the Spirit who inspires the writer inspires the reader, we may perceive fundamental themes which challenge us as directly as they did the earliest readers. Such topics as the nature of the kingdom of God and our part in it; the identity and authority of Jesus our Lord; the centrality of his death and resurrection; their implications for our discipleship; and our own vision of and commitment to mission – all these stand out as part of Mark’s contribution to our spirituality and service. His direct and deep engagement with them, and with us, can enrich us immensely.

Mark 1:1–13

1. The beginning

1. The meaning of the words and phrases (1:1)

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

a. The beginning . . .

The Good News version ‘This is’ (‘This is the Good News’) misses an obvious link with the Genesis story ‘In the beginning’. Mark is establishing the fact that God